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31 August, 2013

Tiddly Inks had a sale on the 15th during their new release, I mentioned it before. Since it included dragons, I snapped them up! I made this scene at the same time I printed out the mermaid that eventually became Koi Mermaid, but I hadn't gotten to them yet. I figured it was time, and sat down to put colour to these little guys. I couldn't think of something cute to say about them card-wise, and didn't want to compete with their colour, so I kept the embellishments and paper dark. I think it worked out.

30 August, 2013

Just a random layout I made with some of my new paper. The cool thing was I found the perfect heart die cut from Dear Lizzy 5th&Frolic with the same pattern. Very trippy. Mostly the journalling is just random stuff going on right now.

29 August, 2013

This is another image I rescued from my pre-printed image box. It was coloured last year at some point. Again with the crummy colour work. I touched it up with my pencils as best I could. And though I had absolutely no clue as to what direction I should go when I was making this card, I like how it came out. I really like how the hearts ended up with the little pattern on them. I'm not so sure about the neon enamel dots, they look better in real life though.

28 August, 2013

This is another of the "lost" images that I found already coloured. I think I did her around Christmas last year. I bring my box of images to my parents' house for a little escape during the visit. Not that they're not great, but sometimes you just need time to yourself; or I wake up super early in the morning and no one is up yet. Colouring is quiet. For the card I was surprised at how well the colours of the Dear Lizzy paper worked out. This was truly just me grabbing bits of paper and seeing if they worked. I had no direction whatsoever when making this. But I think it turned out okay. Matting seems to make everything better. Trying to conserve enamel dots, I went with rhinestones instead.

Anyhow, this was done on the crappy paper and so her skin was blotchy
and her hair was bad so I had to touch her up with pencils. You can
still see the mess the Copics left underneath, but it's more visually
interesting now with the pencils in there. I didn't notice until afterwards that there's cat fur on the image either. Ooops! Cats!

27 August, 2013

Since my Copics aren't really packed to travel anymore, when I stayed an entire day at Mike's work last week I took only my Faber-Castell Polychromos set of pencils with me and my box of pre-printed images. I pulled this one out that happened to be printed in the "no lines" way and set to work. I figured with such a generic image it wouldn't be hard to just go "boy" with it and used my new boy-themed Echo Park papers.

I messed up his eyebrows cos I made them too dark, but the rest of it I'm satisfied with. I like how the hair came out. Blonde hair doesn't usually conform to the "it'll be shiny where the light is" so I just tried to keep a mix of yellow, orange, and brown strands to give it depth. Though I have the full 120 collection of these pencils I really only get the one Caucasian skin tone out of it, so I just tried to focus more on the shadows his hair would create on his face. I also wanted to give him realistic eyes, which is easier in pencil since you have pinpoint precision and don't have to worry about bleeding.

26 August, 2013

I coloured this guy over a year ago; I can tell cos he's on the shit paper and he's all shiny and crappy. BUT he was technically coloured and I wanted to get him on a card so I could officially call him "used" an not just hoarded. I had a REALLY hard time not adding commas to "surf, sand, and sun" but I didn't want to wreck the paper.

25 August, 2013

This is kind of an emotional page. My Nana is the reason I got a Pomeranian; she had them all while I was growing up and I always wanted one. She lived long enough to see him just barely get his Service Dog coat, but not to know the full depth to which he helps me, or to get to know *him* as we were not able to visit at all during the year we got him and he was growing up. I truly wish Nana could have known Sirius, what an amazing dog he is, and how very important he has become to me. I credit her with instilling in me a love for this amazing breed. I know she would have loved him.

24 August, 2013

Just a little gem I pulled out of my pre-printed images box. I cut her down to just a headshot cos, honestly, I really don't like the outfit she's originally wearing. Too much. Plus I haven't done a headshot in a while and they're FUN! I've been waiting much too long to use this paper; I love it. I'll have to scrapbook with it too. ((grin))

23 August, 2013

Hello, everyone, Aeryn here for the last time. I've had such an amazing time as a Make it Crafty Design Team member and I'm so very sad to tell you that this is my last post. The Make it Crafty fandom has been incredibly kind and welcoming to me and I've been grateful to be a part of this family.

To say goodbye I wanted to bring you something extra special. A card like nothing I've ever made before. I got the inspiration while surfing Pinterest and I knew that it would be perfect to incorporate into a Make it Crafty post.

I made a 3D triangular card. You can see here from the "top down" view. It's made from a regular card and then a die cut piece affixed to the front.

I used Sitting Annalise and Butterfly Swing to make this. I like Butterfly Swing the best because it comes in two pieces, perfect for setting your character down on the swing and then putting the piece in the foreground on top of it. I made the blue and green background with watercolours and Faber-Castell Gelatos, which are kind of like water soluble crayons, and some stamps with white ink. I hung Annalise's swing on a Cameo cut branch, and added a tree cut as well to complete the scene.

I really hope that you like her, and that she inspires you to break out of your box a little. I know this was certainly a departure from my normal creating, but aside from a few minor breakdowns at 12am, I really enjoyed the process!

Thank you for following me and my projects here on the Make it Crafty blog; I've had so much fun sharing with you.

22 August, 2013

On the 15th Tiddly Inks had a release. That release consisted of Halloween, Mermaids, and Dragons. Um, yeah, can you say "tailor made for Aeryn"? I KNOW I'm trying not to buy and do that, but damn! How am I supposed to resist that?! I'm not, that's how. It was only $12 and I got a ton cos they had a 25% off coupon, so I don't feel bad, lmao.

I bought this gal, and her sister mermaid, and printed this one out right away. Then I thought "what if a mermaid looked like a Koi fish?" So I looked up Koi fish, picked out my Copic colours, and immediately became paralysed. I was so freaked out I'd mess it up, and I found *anything* else to do other than starting this. Tuesday night I finally got so tired from the coffee I was drinking I said "screw it" and picked up the BLACK of all things. Which is why the tail is messed up, whatever, deal with it. Other than that it sorta came out though. Oh, and I drew in the face, that wasn't the artist making her look weird. The artist only did the dots of the eyes, everything else is my Copic Multiliner.

Also, I want to announce that my 6x6 project seems to have worked. I went right for this paper when thinking of putting this image on a card and then I was able to find a good black and white for my Cameo to cut out the doily; all because of the 6x6 Purge Pile project. Starting to fell better about sacrificing an entire day to that!

21 August, 2013

This is my purge pile (except the one labelled "patterned paper"). It has sat around for months, or even years now. I separated my paper to see if I was well and truly done with what was in there, and all I did was ignore it, so obviously I was bored with the paper. But I don't have anyone to purge to, so this paper would just have to go in the trash if I can't figure out something to do with it.

Then I came up with the idea to cut everything down to 6x6 and then maybe I will use it on cards. My 6x6 paper is stored in a separate bin from my 12x12 paper, so that'd help too by not adding all of this crap back into the regular rotation. Since I needed a big place to do this I plopped myself down in front of the TV in the living room, got my trimmer, and got to work. This picture was taken at 11am.

At 12pm I had this. One purge box emptied and cut down to 6x6. The scraps too small to do that were just tossed to the side and made a SUPER mess. By 14:00 I had decided that instead of having that huge mess, I should try and cut down the paper even smaller, into 3x4 cards, to get maximum use out of the scraps.

By 15:30 I was finished with that and had two boxes emptied, a big stack of 6x6, and a decent stack of 3x4 as well. I had also found some lines that might be able to be given new life in the 6x6 format as a set instead of organised by colour, those are separated out in the purple bin's lid. The main part of that bin is used for sticker sheets, shaped paper, and two kits that I found. I had won them at an Expo and never really liked them enough to bother opening them. This photo was taken at 17:00.

At 23:00 I was ready to move on to the paper in my Cropper Hoppers from my paper cart. I had taken a break to eat dinner and watch a movie with Mike. The break had really been needed as all this sitting on the floor was really taking a toll on me physically. My back was killing me and I basically spent the entire day popping pain killers. They didn't work in the slightest, but I wanted to just get this job done so I wouldn't have to think about it any more. It was somewhere around my third movie, about 12am, that I decided though it would slow me down I would have to continue my cutting on my tummy. My back just could not take the sitting any more. My cutting was slower, but a lot less painful after that.

02:00 and I finally finished, just as the movie I was watching ended. You can see how huge the stack of 6x6 papers got, and I knew I'd need that second bin to hold them. You can also see the little themed piles I separated out. Halloween, Fall, and Christmas, to see if I could give them new life as exclusively paper for cards. They just wouldn't look right mixed in with everything and I didn't want to give up on all of them yet since the two on the right are some of my favourites from years past. In the end the scraps and cutoffs filled that entire Iris container. That part is going in the trash.

Here was my project for today: to take that huge stack of 6x6 and sort it into the bins by colour. At least this job could be done on my desk and actually went pretty quickly. I'm surprised the whole rainbow fit into one container like that, and there is a TON of pink because while I end up with it sometimes, I just don't enjoy using it. We'll see if I can change that, at least on cards.

As far as the paper that I scrapbook layouts with, I'm down to 17 lines, including the ones that I just got from my recent 2Peas order (picture below). I don't like having too much paper on hand, so this is good. I don't count the 6x6 papers as part of my stash since they're only for cards and most all of it is rejected paper anyway. If I can use it, fine, if I can't it's going out one way or another. But right now the 12x12 stuff is new and decently exciting, so I'm going to do my best to use it up completely so it doesn't have to live in these bins here.

20 August, 2013

I'm actually pretty proud of myself for this one cos I managed to mix paper lines for it. Only the orange and blue are from the same line, the brown is from another, as is the yellow. Of course, they're all Echo Park papers, so I wasn't that adventurous. I used Gelatos to colour the chipboard and fabric pieces, and I played with some enamel dots too. This is the third of the three layouts I made on Saturday with my new order of supplies.

19 August, 2013

Another layout with my new papers and embellishments. I found the card in my papers, on the back of one of the papers I bought for the *front*, but the sentiment kind of worked. It really *is* a gift that I have Sirius and the freedom he provides me with. Suddenly I'm not watching a movie alone, I'm chilling with my buddy. This might have a bit too much pink on it for being a boy layout, but I don't really hear Sirius complaining and black *does* go with everything.

18 August, 2013

My Cameo was one of those that came with a defective blade, we think, so I contacted customer service about it and they're great. They sent me a new blade, but I had to wait, which put my PL at least out of commission, as well as anything else I wanted to cut. Now I have a new blade and am catching up so here's week 30 for this year. VERY boring, laid back week, so I had to compensate with lots of pictures of the kids. Oh darn.

I got new paper! 2Peas a few weeks ago had a sale where everything in the store was 20% off AND the free shipping still worked. Sometimes they do that and then take away free shipping, immediately making me uninterested. But this time I had to jump on it. I haven't had new paper since I went to Archiver's in February. Yeah. So I went and cherry picked from the mid-season releases, picking up 8 lines worth. The max was 10 papers from a line and the average is 5 pieces. It was a 5/8 of an inch stack of paper and I was surprised! I quickly sorted it all by line and put it in my Cropper Hopper Page Planner envelopes, but I haven't filed it away yet.

Though I'm really bad at buying and using embellishments I managed to pick up these few things. I can always seem to use enamel dots, or tiny things like wood veneers on both scrapbook layouts and cards so I figured those were a good buy. The stickers are colour-able so they should work for lots of stuff. The Gelatos I threw in to push me into the free shipping cos some of the stuff was on clearance and didn't count. But I don't have any of the colours so that helped and I can colour the stickers with them so that works. My total order was $60, which isn't bad at all for my "once a year" 2Peas order.

The kind of person I am is I'm very influenced by the new. I get super excited and want to use the new right away and that is something I definitely had to take advantage of. Having a Selphy really helps with that cos these photos are from like two weeks ago. No sending away to be able to use my new stuff. I picked out the paper I'd bought from Carta Bella called "Hello Again". I only have a few pieces of their Halloween paper, so I didn't know that they make such thick, textured paper all the time, but I really like it. This layout is completely stolen from here. I think that helped me do this as I finished it in 30 minutes. It's also an answer to the Create a Day August in the 2Peas forum. I'm obviously behind, but I've been inundated with card projects and I actually wanted to *scrapbook* for this challenge so I'm playing catch-up.

16 August, 2013

A friend of mine guesting on the Dreamweaver stencils DT and her prize package inspired me to break out the stencils that I got in TWENTY-ELEVEN at the Copic retreat I went to. Yeah, I bought them, slight discount, and never used them. ((head/desk)) I tried this idea with my Distress Inks, but they don't like the embossing paste *at all*, nor does the embossing paste like my shitty paper from Michael's. Ugh. So I had to try again and I used alcohol inks instead, since knew the Copic airbrush works, but I was too damned lazy to break out my airbrush. I probably should have though, cos those alcohol inks are HARSH on the breathing. Anyway, then I paired the scene with some punched grass, Puppy Tobie the digi, and some pumpkins. I attempted to make a speed colouring video for Tobie, that's why he looks like crap, but I accidentally pulled the image off frame or way to the bottom right of the frame so it's not really something you want to watch. I'll try again. I hope everyone likes this, and also, it *needs* to be Fall already.

15 August, 2013

Hello, everyone, Aeryn here! Today I have a special card for you using Cordelia the Mermaid.
She's one of my faves in the store and I hope you can see why. Isn't
she lovely? I had her sitting on my desk for a few days, letting me mull
over just how I wanted to colour her up to best show off her features,
when I woke up and said "black and green!" I know what you're thinking
"black and green? that's crazy talk!" But if one has to learn anything
in this creative game it's to always try something NEW! I'd never done
or seen a black mermaid, let alone one with green skin, but there you
have it. Cordelia was just the girl to try it on. I wanted to mix a bit
of purple in with the black, just to keep it more feminine, but to also
evoke sort of an Ursula the Sea Witch feeling to her. I have no idea
why... but I think it worked and that's the important part. Once I got
Cordelia coloured up I coloured around her with my Derwent Inktense
pencils, took a water pen to the pencil work, and set to making her a
card.

12 August, 2013

I'm still on my mermaid kick! Oh yeah! Kraftin' Kimmie had a sale last week so I picked up just a very few stamps. One set of piggies that was about to retire, a single mermaid, and then this gal that's part of a three piece mermaid set. They have their own sentiments too, but since when have I been good with sentiments? I paired the rubber stamp with digital stamps from Make it Crafty since I have their whole underwater set. I've never coloured a dolphin before! That was way fun. I put more detail in her face and hair with my coloured pencils and that's it! I was so lazy on Sunday this image sat on my desk the whole day until I finally got my butt in gear at midnight and put her on a card!

11 August, 2013

This here is my very first card made with Kraftin' Kimmie stamps. I've been looking at their stamps for a while and during a FB sale I was able to pick up just a few of them. I thought I was going to miss out on another sale to pick up a few more, but a very kind friend of mine, Jill Angel, actually bought them for me. She's so very generous. I think my collection has grown to like 10 or so now so I'm looking forward to showcasing more of these cute stamps.

This card was the same idea as the previous one in purple, just a few patterned papers matted, but I managed to make it look different. I'll have to try something else next time, I'm sure. I just wanted to work with pink and green today and I don't have a whole lot of SUPER green in my stash. I had a tough time colouring this image, because the stamp is really small, and her limbs are really thin. The whole thing is like 3" high, and that's just *way* smaller than I'm used to. I tried my best. And for some of the detail I went in with the coloured pencils cos they're more forgiving of things like med shake, which I have in spades.

10 August, 2013

Just a quick little card. Trying to make sure I do things "just for fun" too, and I don't overwhelm the Make it Crafty blog, lol! I have very few purple patterned papers. I think all of them are on this card actually. I need more purple patterns. An incredibly kind person over on my message board, Sue, sent me a care package and in there were those little enamel stars. I was really happy that there was just the perfect amount, and shade, of purple to include them on this card. I printed out the sentiment myself from Word. I'm trying to improve my card making and my friend, Jenn, said that layers are key, so I'm trying. I hope you like it!

09 August, 2013

We all know that Alice in Wonderland is a book as well as several movies. What I *didn't* know was how cool the new Make it Crafty images would look when paired *with* that book. It took Kay Louise Priest and her wonderful card using the Red Queen to spark that thought in my head. For my cards I went in search of the book text online. It's now public domain, so the entire book is available for free. I copied some of the text, Chapter 9 I think, during the hedgehog croquet scene, and paired the text with my two chosen images.

First I had to use the card soldier. I loved him the second I saw him. I like that he's a "tougher" rendition of the very fluffy version that Disney presented us with. Plus, as a Doctor Who fan, I have a soft spot for gas masks. I tried to colour him rusty. Dirty, rusted copper, and tarnished... whatever that metal that's normally silver is. Tin? Steel? Something like that. Either way, he's tarnished and messy. For both the cards I used my Tim Holtz Distress Inks (Antique Linen and Walnut Stain) to distress the Copic XPress-It paper before I coloured the images.

Secondly, since it was the Kay's version of the Queen that inspired me, I had to do her too. I wanted to keep her a bit tarnished, like her guard, but still regal. I used the same tarnished copper idea, as well as a brownish type of fur for her coat, and a sort of leather brown for her gown. She ended up with more text with her, so it's a bit smaller, but still readable.

I really hope you like my projects and will experiment with your digis and book text yourselves!

07 August, 2013

This image has been a LONG time coming, I just
had to work up my courage to do it. Have you ever had to do that? Pluck
up enough courage to try something so new to you, even though you were
excited about it? Well, that's what this is. When we were celebrating
the release of our awesome performers I saw the cityscape backdrop and I
instantly got the idea for a sunset in the park. I even went so far as
to create this scene. Then I lost my nerve! That's right, I totally
chickened out. But a couple days ago I buckled down and gave it a try. I
created the sunset with my Derwent Inktense coloured pencils, blending
the colours together with water. I then coloured the rest of the scene
with Copics and added in a few more pencil touches. The blades of grass
were done with running my water brush along an Inktense pencil to gather
up the pigment and then flicking it upwards to get a tiny grass blade. I
looked at a lot of pictures in Google, trying to get the sunset just
the right colours, and to evoke the proper time of night, but I think
for a first try it definitely projects the feeling I was looking for.

I
hope you like this project and are inspired to try something new in
your colouring. You never know how cool things can turn out until you
try!

04 August, 2013

Hey,
everyone, Aeryn here! How are you all enjoying Make it Crafty's big
birthday tea party? Me, I've been having an amazing time. The second
this release came out I had to snap up these lovely images to work with,
I just couldn't wait to colour them up. I did set aside my Copics
however and coloured them up on Kraft using my Faber-Castell Polychromos
coloured pencils. I *love* the effect that pencils have on Kraft, but I
have to admit I'm pretty rusty with my pencil work alone - I usually
pair pencils with my Copics. I've definitely got to practise with this
medium by itself more often. I think it really lent itself to the
feeling I was trying to create for this piece, the sort of "old world
drawing" kind of thing. I did a mix of themes with this one, colouring
the Mad Hatter and March Hare in the original Disney movie style, the
Cheshire cat in the Tim Burton movie style, and going traditional with
Alice's blonde and blue/white dress.

I
hope you like it, and I've inspired you to break out your coloured
pencils to play with this collection of amazing Wonderland images.

02 August, 2013

Welcome back to Aeryn's Creative Explosion during this Make it Crafty Wonderland celebration. I hope you've been enjoying your hopping and all the amazing things everyone has made to show you. I have something fun to show you *here* and I hope you'll like it!

Hopefully you came here from Diana, but if not, you can see where you left off back at Zoe's.

For something as colourful and imaginative as Alice in Wonderland I thought I'd come up with a tutorial to match it. I've had a lot of requests and interest in how I colour my images with rainbow hair, so I figured I'd show you! Here's a step-by-step tutorial that will hopefully help you make some awesome colourful images of your own. Don't forget, you can Pin the whole thing and share it with your friends!

Hello, everyone and welcome to Aeryn's Creative Explosion! Today we are celebrating not only the HUGE release of Make it Crafty's new Alice in Wonderland line, but Make it Crafty is turning THREE! I discovered this wonderful company in 2011, so I missed some of it, but I'm so grateful to have been enjoying this company since then and to be a full part of the celebration now as part of the Design Team.

We're hopping chairs from place to place today to enjoy all the wonderful things that everyone has created. Keep your eyes open for hidden words in posts that you'll need to collect along the way and string together to form a quote from the Alice in Wonderland book. Enter the quote at the end of the hop to be entered for a chance to win the Alice in Wonderland collection! (All info is available on the main blog so don't just go by me!)

Hopefully you've come here from enjoying Kasey's creations, but if you've missed a chair or two you might want to start back at the beginning at Zoe's blog.

For my part in this celebration I've created four cards for you. I really tried to get into the spirit of the book as well as my happy memories of the Disney and Tim Burton movies for my creations.

I hope you really like my projects and I've inspired you to get into the spirit of that magical land that Alice visits.

The fun doesn't stop here with me, Delphine I'm sure has something FANTASTIC for you to check out, so MOVE DOWN, move down, move down on to her blog!

I'm 33 years old. I've been married to Mike Reitmeyer for 14 years. I'm a stay-at-home-wife and I have Cystic Fibrosis. We have two fur-kids: Gambit LeBeau (14 yo tabby)and Sirius Lupin my 5yo Pomeranian Service Dog.

All images and creations presented on this blog are property of me, Aeryn Kelly. Any use of them without expressed written permission is prohibited. Please do not submit my work or represent it as your own in any way. All opinions on this site are my own. Any and all links to any outside source are provided without monetary gain; they are for proper citation for the stamp artist and the benefit of the readers of this website. I only promote products and companies that I personally use and believe in. I make no money off of this website.